PR 

6003 

E45V4 
19/6 




VERSES BY H. BELLOC 



VERSES 

By 

HILAIRE BELLOC 



V/ith an Introduction 

By 

JOYCE KILMER 



NEW YORK 

LAURENCE J. GOMME 

I916 



6 



Copyright, 1916, By 
Laurence J. Gomme 



DEC -4 19(6 



VAIL-BALLOU COMPANV 
•INaHAMTON AND NtW YOllll 



QCI.A445948 



JOHN SWINNERTON PHILLIMORE 

A DEDICATION 
WITH THIS BOOK OF VERSE 

When you and I were little tiny boys 
We took a most impertinent delight 

In foolish, painted and misshapen toys 

That hidden mothers brought to us at night. 

Do you that have the child's diviner part — 
The dear content a love familiar brings — 

Take these imperfect toys, till in your heart 
They too attain the form of perfect thingsf 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction xi 

To Dives i 

Stanzas Written on Battersea Bridge During 

A South-Westerly Gale 4 

The South Country 7 

The Fanatic 10 

Noel 14 

The Early Morning 16 

The Birds 17 

Our Lord and Our Lady 18 

In a Boat 20 

Courtesy 22 

The Night 24 

The Leader 25 

A Bivouac 27 

To THE Balliol Men Still in Africa .... 28 
Verses to a Lord Who, in the House of Lords, 
Said That Those Who Opposed the South 
African Adventure Confused Soldiers with 

Money-Grubbers 30 

The Rebel 32 

The Prophet Lost in the Hills at Evening . 34 

vii 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Song, Inviting the Influence of a Young Lady 

UPON THE Opening Year 36 

The Ring 37 

Cuckoo 38 

The Mirror 39 

The Little Serving Maid 40 

The End of the Road 43 

Auvergnat 45 

Drinking Song, on the Excellence of Bur- 
gundy Wine 46 

Drinking Dirge 48 

West Sussex Drinking Song 50 

A Ballad on Sociological Economics ... 52 
An Oracle That Warned the Writer When 

ON Pilgrimage 54 

Heretics All 55 

The Death and Last Confession of Wandering 

Peter 56 

Dedicatory Ode 58 

Dedication on the Gift of a Book to a Child . 66 
Dedication of a Child's Book of Imaginary 

Tales 67 

Homage 68 

Fille-la-Haine 69 

The Moon's Funeral 70 

The Happy Journalist 72 

vili 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Lines to a Don 74 

Newdigate Poem 77 

The Yellow Mustard 82 

On Hygiene 83 

The False Heart 84 

Sonnet upon God the Wine-Giver .... 85 

The Politician or the Irish Earldom ... 86 

Short Ballad and Postscript on Consols . . 89 



IX 



INTRODUCTION 
By Joyce Kilmer 

Far from the poets being astray in prose-writ- 
ing (said Francis Thompson) it might plausibly 
be contended that English prose, as an art, is but 
a secondary stream of the Pierian fount, and owes 
its very origin to the poets. The first writer one 
remembers with whom prose became an art was 
Sir Philip Sidney. And Sidney was a poet. 

This quotation is relevant to a consideration of 
Hilaire Belloc, because Belloc is a poet who hap- 
pens to be known chiefly for his prose. His Dan- 
ton and Robespierre have been read by every in- 
telligent student of French history, his Path to 
Rome^ that most high-spirited and engaging of 
travel books, has passed through many editions, 
his political writings are known to all lovers — 
and many foes — of democracy, his whimsically im- 
aginative novels have their large and apprecia- 

xi 



INTRODUCTION 

tive audience, and his exquisite brief essays are 
contemporary classics. And since the unforget- 
able month of August of the unforgetable year 
1914, Hilaire Belloc has added to the number of 
his friends many thousands who care little for 
belles lettres and less for the French Revolution 
— he has become certainly the most popular, and 
by general opinion the shrewdest and best in- 
formed, of all chroniclers and critics of the Great 
War. 

There is nothing, it may be said, about these 
achievements to indicate the poet. How can this 
most public of publicists woo the shy and exacting 
Muse? His superabundant energy may now and 
again overflow in little lyrical rivulets, but how 
can he find time to turn it into the deep channels 
of song? 

Well, what is the difference between a poet 
who writes prose and a prose-writer who writes 
verse? The difference is easy to see but hard to 
describe. Mr. Thomas Hardy is a prose writer. 
He has forsaken the novel, of which he was so 
distinguished a master, to make cynical little son- 
net portraits and to pour the acid wine of his 
philosophy — a sort of perverted Presbyterianism 

xii 



INTRODUCTION 

— into the graceful amphora of poetic drama. 
But he is not a poet. Thackeray was a prose- 
writer, in spite of his delicious light verse. Every 
novelist writes or has written verse, but not all of 
them are poets. 

Of course, Sir Walter Scott was first of all a 
poet — the greatest poet who ever wrote a novel. 
And no one who has read Love in the Valley can 
hesitate to give Meredith his proper title. Was 
Macaulay a poet*? I think so — but perhaps I am 
in a hopeless minority in my belief that the author 
of The Battle of Naseby and The Lays of Ancient 
Rome was the last of the great English ballad 
makers. 

But this general truth cannot, I think, honestly 
be denied; there have been many great poets who 
have devoted most of their lives to writing prose. 
Some of them have died without discovering their 
neglected talent. I think that Walter Pater was 
one of these; much that is annoyingly subtle or 
annoyingly elaborate in his essays needs only 
rhyme and rhythm — the lovely accidents of poetry 
— to become graceful and appropriate. His fa- 
mous description of the Mona Lisa is worthless if 
considered as a piece of serious aesthetic criticism. 

xiii 



INTRODUCTION 

But it would make an admirable sonnet. And it 
is significant that Walter Pater's two greatest 
pupils — Lionel Johnson and Father Gerard Hop- 
kins, S.J., — found expression for their genius not 
in prose, the chosen medium of their "unforget- 
ably most gracious friend," but in verse. 

From Walter Pater, that exquisite of letters, 
to the robust Hilaire Belloc may seem a long 
journey. But there is, I insist, this similarity be- 
tween these contrasting writers, both are poets, 
and both are known to fame by their prose. 

For proof that Walter Pater was a poet, it is 
necessary only to read his Renaissance Studies or 
his interpretations — unsound but fascinating — of 
the soul of ancient Greece. Often his essays, too 
delicately accurate in phrasing or too heavily laden 
with golden rhetoric, seem almost to cry aloud for 
the relief of rhyme and rhythm. 

Now, Hilaire Belloc suggests in many of his 
prose sketches that he is not using his true medium. 
I remember a brief essay on sleep which appeared 
in The New Witness — or, as it was then called, 
The Eye Witness — several years ago, which was 
not so much a complete work in itself as it was a 

draft for a poem. It had the economy of phrase, 

xiv 



INTRODUCTION 

the concentration of idea, which is proper to 
poetry. 

But it is not necessary in the case of Hilaire 
Belloc, as it is in that of Walter Pater, to search 
pages of prose for proof that their author is a 
poet. Now and then — all too seldom — the idea 
in this man's brain has insisted on its right, has 
scorned the proffered dress of prose, however fine 
of warp and woof, however stiff with rich verbal 
embroidery, and has demanded its rhymed and 
rhythmed wadding garments. Therefore, for 
proof that Hilaire Belloc is a poet it is necessary 
only to read his poetry. 

II 

Hilaire Belloc is a poet. Also he is a French- 
man, an Englishman, an Oxford man, a Roman 
Catholic, a country gentleman, a soldier, a demo- 
crat, and a practical journalist. He is always all 
these things. 

One sign that he is naturally a poet is that he is 
never deliberately a poet. No one can imagine 
him writing a poem to order — even to his own 
order. The poems knock at the door of his brain 
and demand to be let out. And he lets them out, 

XV 



INTRODUCTION 

carelessly enough, setting them comfortably down 
on paper simply because that is the treatment they 
desire. And this happens to be the way all real 
poetry is made. 

Not that all verse makers work that way. 
There are men who come upon a waterfall or 
mountain or an emotion and say: "Aha! here is 
something out of which I can extract a poem I" 
And they sit down in front of that waterfall or 
mountain or emotion and think up clever things 
to say about it. These things they put into 
metrical form, and the result they fondly call a 
poem. 

There's no harm in that. It's good exercise for 
the mind, and of it comes much interesting verse. 
But it is not the way in which the sum of the 
world's literature is increased. 

Could anything, for example, be less studied, 
be more clearly marked with the stigmata of that 
noble spontaneity we call inspiration, than the 
passionate, rushing, irresistible lines "To the 
Balliol Men Still in Africa"? Like Gilbert K. 
Chesterton and many another English democrat, 
Hilaire Belloc deeply resented his country's war 
upon the Boers. Yet his heart went out to the 

xvi 



INTRODUCTION 

friends of his university days who were fighting 
in Africa. They were fighting, he thought, in an 
unjust cause; but they were his friends and they 
were, at any rate, fighting. And so he made some- 
thing that seems (like all great writing) an utter- 
ance rather than a composition ; he put his love of 
war in general and his hatred of this war in par- 
ticular, his devotion to Balliol and to the friends 
of his youth into one of the very few pieces of 
genuine poetry which the Boer War produced. 
Nor has any of Oxford's much-sung colleges 
known praise more fit than this 

"House that armours a man 

With the eyes of a boy and the heart of a ranger, 
And a laughing way in the teeth of the world, 
And a holy hunger and thirst for danger." 

But perhaps a more typical example of Hilaire 
Belloc's wanton genius is to be found not among 
those poems which are, throughout, the beautiful 
expressions of beautiful impressions, but among 
those which are careless, whimsical, colloquial. 
There is that delightful, but somewhat exasperat- 
ing Dedicatory Ode. Hilaire Belloc is talking — 
charmingly, as is his custom — to some, of his 
friends, who had belonged, in their university days, 

xvli 



INTRODUCTION 

to a youthful revolutionary organization called 
the Republican Club. He happens to be talking 
in verse, for no particular reason except that it 
amuses him to talk in verse. He makes a num- 
ber of excellent jokes, and enjoys them very much ; 
his Pegasus is cantering down the road at a jolly 
gait, when suddenly, to the amazement of the 
spectators, it spreads out great golden wings and 
flashes like a meteor across the vault of heaven I 
We have been laughing at the droll tragedy of the 
opium-smoking Uncle Paul; we have been enjoy- 
ing the humorous spectacle of the contemplative 
freshman — and suddenly we come upon a bit of 
astonishingly fine poetry. Who would expect, in 
all this whimsical and jovial writing, to find this 
really great stanza'? 

"From quiet homes and first beginning, 
Out to the undiscovered ends. 
There's nothing worth the wear of winning, 
But laughter and the love of friends." 

Who having read these four lines, can forget 
them? And who but a poet could write them*? 
But Hilaire Belloc has not forced himself into this 
high mood, nor does he bother to maintain it. 
He gaily passes on to another verse of drollery, 

xviii 



INTRODUCTION 

and then, not because he wishes to bring the poem 
to an effective climax, but merely because it hap- 
pens to be his mood, he ends the escapade he calls 
an Ode with eight or ten stanzas of nobly beauti- 
ful poetry. 

There is something almost uncanny about the 
flashes of inspiration which dart out at the aston- 
ished reader of Hilaire Belloc's most frivolous 
verses. Let me alter a famous epigram and call 
his light verse a circus illuminated by lightning. 
There is that monumental burlesque, the New- 
digate Poem — A Prize Poem Submitted by Mr. 
Lambkin of Burford to the Examiners of the Uni- 
versity of Oxford on the Prescribed Poetic Theme 
Set by Them in i8gj, ''The Benefits of the Elec- 
tric Light."" It is a tremendous joke; with every 
line the reader echoes the author's laughter. But 
without the slightest warning, Hilaire Belloc 
passes from the rollicking burlesque to shrewd 
satire; he has been merrily jesting with a bladder 
on a stick, he suddenly draws a gleaming rapier 
and thrusts it into the heart of error. He makes 

Mr. Lambkin say : 

xlx 



INTRODUCTION 

"Life is a veil, its paths are dark and rough 
Only because we do not know enough : 
When Science has discovered something more 
We shall be happier than we were before." 

Here we find the directness and restraint which 
belong to really great satire. This is the material- 
istic theory, the religion of Science, not burlesqued, 
not parodied, but merely stated nakedly, without 
the verbal frills and furbelows with which our for- 
ward-looking leaders of popular thought are ac- 
customed to cover its obscene absurdity. Almost 
these very words have been uttered in a dozen 
"rationalistic" pulpits I could mention, pulpits 
occupied by robustuous practical gentlemen with 
very large eyes, great favourites with the women's 
clubs. Their pet doctrines, their only and most 
offensive dogma, is not attacked, is not ridiculed; 
it is merely stated for them, in all kindness and 
simplicity. They cannot answer it, they cannot 
deny that it is a mercilessly fair statement of the 
"philosophy" that is their stock in trade. I hope 
that many of them will read it. 

Ill 

Hilaire Belloc was bom July 27, 1870. He 

XX 



INTRODUCTION 

was educated at the Oratory School, Edgbaston, 
and at Balliol College, Oxford. After leaving 
school he served as a driver in the Eighth Regi- 
ment of French Artillery at Toul Meurthe-et- 
Moselle, being at that time a French citizen. 
Later he was naturalized as a British subject, and 
entered the House of Commons in 1906 as Liberal 
Member for South Salford. British politicians 
will not soon forget the motion which Hilaire 
Belloc introduced one day in the early Spring of 
1908, the motion that the Party funds, hitherto 
secretly administered, be publicly audited. His 
vigorous and persistent campaign against the party 
system has placed him, with Cecil Chesterton, in 
the very front ranks of those to whom the demo- 
crats of Great Britain must look for leadership 
and inspiration. He was always a keen student 
of military affairs; he prophesied, long before the 
event, the present international conflict, describ- 
ing with astonishing accuracy the details of the 
German invasion of Belgium and the resistance of 
Liege. Now he occupies a unique position among 
the journalists who comment upon the War, hav- 
ing tremendously increased the circulation of Land 
and Water^ the periodical for which he writes 

xxi 



sX 



INTRODUCTION 

regularly, and lecturing to a huge audience once 
a week on the events of the War in one of the 
largest of London's concert halls — Queen's Hall, 
where the same vast crowds that listen to the War 
lectures used to gather to hear the works of the 
foremost German composers. 

IV 

Hilaire Belloc, as I have said, is a Frenchman, 
an Englishman, an Oxford man, a country gentle- 
man, a soldier, a democrat, and a practical journal- 
ist. In all these characters he utters his poetry. 
As a Frenchman, he is vivacious and gallant and 
quick. He has the noble English frankness, and 
that broad irresistible English mirthfulness which 
is so much more inclusive than that narrow posses- 
sion, a sense of humour. Democrat though he is, 
there is about him something of the atmosphere of 
the country squire of some generations ago; it is 
in his heartiness, his jovial dignity, his deep love 
of the land. The author of The South Country 
and Courtesy has made Sussex his inalienable 
possession ; he owns Sussex, as Dickens owns Lon- 
don, and Blackmore owns Devonshire. And he 

xxii 



INTRODUCTION 

is thoroughly a soldier, a happy warrior, as brave 
and dextrous, no one can doubt, with a sword of 
steel as with a sword of words. 

He has taken the most severe risk which a poet 
can take: he has written poems about childhood. 
What happened when the late Algernon Charles 
Swinburne bent his energies to the task of celebrat- 
ing this theme? As the result of his solemn medi- 
tation on the mystery of childhood, he arrived at 
two conclusions, which he melodiously announced 
to the world. They were, first, that the face of a 
baby wearing a plush cap looks like a moss-rose 
bud in its soft sheath, and, second, that "astro- 
labe" rhymes with "babe." Very charming, of 
course, but certainly unworthy of a great poet. 
And upon this the obvious comment is that Swin- 
burne was not a great poet. He took a theme ter- 
ribly great and terribly simple, and about it he 
wrote . . . something rather pretty. 

Now, when a really great poet — Francis 
Thompson, for example — has before him such a 
theme^ as childhood, he does not spend his time 
making far-fetched comparisons with moss-rose 
buds, or hunting for words that rhyme with 
"babe." Childhood suggests Him Who made 

xxiii 



INTRODUCTION 

childhood sacred, so the poet writes Ex Ore In- 
fantium^ or such a poem as that which ends with 
the line : 

"Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven." 

A poet may write pleasingly about mountains, 
and cyclones, and battles, and the love of woman, 
but if he is at all timid about the verdict of poster- 
ity he should avoid the theme of childhood as he 
would avoid the plague. For only great poets 
can write about childhood poems worthy to be 
printed. 

Hilaire Belloc has written poems about chil- 
dren, and they are worthy to be printed. He is 
never ironic when he thinks about childhood; he is 
gay, whimsical, with a slight suggestion of elfin 
cynicism, but he is direct, as a child is direct. He 
has written two dedicatory poems for books to be 
given to children; they are slight things but they 
are a revelation of their author's power to do what 
only a very few poets can do, that is, to enter into 
the heart and mind of the child, following that 
advice which has its literary as well as moral sig- 
nificance, to "become as a little child." 

And in many of Hilaire Belloc's poems by no 
xxiv 



\.. 



INTRODUCTION 

means intended for childish audiences there is an 
appealing simplicity that is genuinely and beauti- 
fully childish, something quite different from the 
adult and highly artificial simplicity of Professor 
A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad. Take that 
quatrain The Early Morning. It is as clear and 
cool as the time it celebrates; it is absolutely desti- 
tute of rhetorical indulgence, poetical inversions 
or "literary" phrasing. It is, in fact, conversa- 
tion — inspired conversation, which is poetry. It 
might have been written by a Wordsworth not 
painfully self-conscious, or by a Blake whose brain 
was not as yet muddled with impressionistic 
metaphysics. 

And his Christmas carols — they are fit to be 
sung by a chorus of children. Can any songs of 
the sort receive higher praise than that*? Chil- 
dren, too, appreciate The Birds and Our Lord and 
Our Lady. Nor is that wonderful prayer rather 
flatly called In a Boat beyond the reach of their 
intelligence. 

Naturally enough, Hilaire Belloc is strongly 
drawn to the almost violent simplicity of the bal- 
lad. Bishop Percy would not have enjoyed the 
theological and political atmosphere of The Little 

XXV 



INTRODUCTION 

Serving Maid^ but he would have acknowledged 
its irresistible charm. There is that wholly de- 
lightful poem The Death and Last Confession of 
Wandering Peter — a most Bellocian vagabond. 
"He wandered everywhere he would : and all that 
he approved was sung, and most of what he saw 
was good." Says Peter: 

"If all that I have loved and seen 
Be with me on the Judgment Day, 
I shall be saved the crowd between 
From Satan and his foul array." 

Hilaire Belloc has seen much and loved much. 
He has sung lustily the things he approved — with 
what hearty hatred has he sung the things he dis- 
approved! 

V 

Hilaire Belloc is not the man to spend much 
time in analysing his own emotions; he is not, 
thank God, a poetical psychologist. Love songs, 
drinking songs, battle songs — it is with these prim- 
itive and democratic things that he is chiefly con- 
cerned. 

But there is something more democratic than 
xxvi 



INTRODUCTION 

wine or love or war. That thing is Faith. And 
Hilaire Belloc's part in increasing the sum of 
the world's beauty would not be the considerable 
thing that it is were it not for his Faith. It is 
not that (like Dante Gabriel Rossetti) he is at- 
tracted by the Church's pageantry and wealth of 
legend. To Hilaire Belloc the pageantry is only 
incidental, the essential thing is his Catholic Faith. 
He writes convincingly about Our Lady and Saint 
Joseph and the Child Jesus because he himself is 
convinced. He does not delve into mediceval tra- 
dition in quest of picturesque incidents, he merely 
writes what he knows to be true. His Faith fur- 
nishes him with the theme for those of his poems 
which are most likely to endure; his Faith gives 
him the "rapture of an inspiration." His Faith 
enables him, as it has enabled many another poet, 
to see "in the lamp that is beauty, the light that 
is God." 

And therein is Hilaire Belloc most thoroughly 
and consistently a democrat. For in this twen- 
tieth century it happens that there is on earth only 
one genuine democratic institution. And that in- 
stitution is the Catholic Church. 

xxvii 



TO DIVES 

Dives, when you and I go down to Hell, 
Where scribblers end and millionaires as well. 
We shall be carrying on our separate backs 
Two very large but very different packs ; 
And as you stagger under yours, my friend, 
Down the dull shore where all our journeys end, 
And go before me (as your rank demands) 
Towards the infinite flat underlands. 
And that dear river of forgetfulness — 
Charon, a man of exquisite address 
(For, as your wife's progenitors could tell, 
They're very strict on etiquette in Hell), 
Will, since you are a lord, observe, "My lord. 
We cannot take these weighty things aboard I" 
Then down they go, my wretched Dives, down — 
The fifteen sorts of boots you kept for town. 
The hat to meet the Devil in; the plain 
But costly ties ; the cases of champagne ; 
The solid watch, and seal, and chain, and charm; 
The working model of a Burning Farm 

1 



TO DIVES 

(To give the little Belials) ; all the three 
Biscuits for Cerberus; the guarantee 
From Lambeth that the Rich can never burn, 
And even promising a safe return; 
The admirable overcoat, designed 
To cross Cocytus — very warmly lined: 
Sweet Dives, you will leave them all behind 
And enter Hell as tattered and as bare 
As was your father when he took the air 
Behind a barrow-load in Leicester Square. 
Then turned to me, and noting one that brings 
With careless step a mist of shadowy things : 
Laughter and memories, and a few regrets. 
Some honour, and a quantity of debts, 
A doubt or two of sorts, a trust in God, 
And (what will seem to you extremely odd) 
His father's granfer's father's father's name. 
Unspoilt, untitled, even spelt the same; 
Charon, who twenty thousand times before 
Has ferried Poets to the ulterior shore, 
Will estimate the weight I bear, and cry — 
"Comrade !" (He has himself been known to try 
His hand at Latin and Italian verse. 
Much in the style of Virgil — only worse) 



TO DIVES 

"We let such vain imaginaries pass!" 
Then tell me, Dives, which will look the ass — 
You, or myself? Or Charon? Who can tell"? 
They order things so damnably in Hell. 



STANZAS WRITTEN ON BATTERSEA 
BRIDGE DURING A SOUTH- 
WESTERLY GALE 

The woods and downs have caught the mid-De- 
cember, 

The noisy woods and high sea-downs of home ; 
The wind has found me and I do remember 

The strong scent of the foam. 

Woods, darlings of my wandering feet, another 
Possesses you, another treads the Down; 

The South West Wind that was my elder brother 
Has come to me in town. 

The wind is shouting from the hills of morning, 
I do remember and I will not stay. 

I'll take the Hampton road without a warning 
And get me clean away. 

The Channel is up, the little seas are leaping, 
The tide is making over Arun Bar; 
4 



ON BATTERSEA BRIDGE 

And there's my boat, where all the rest are 
sleeping 
And my companions are. 

I'll board her, and apparel her, and I'll mount her, 
My boat, that was the strongest friend to me — 

That brought my boyhood to its first encounter 
And taught me the wide sea. 

Now shall I drive her, roaring hard a' weather, 
Right for the salt and leave them all behind. 

We'll quite forget the treacherous streets together 
And find — or shall we find? 

There is no Pilotry my soul relies on 

Whereby to catch beneath my bended hand, 

Faint and beloved along the extreme horizon 
That unforgotten land.. 

We shall not round the granite piers and paven 
To lie to wharves we know with canvas furled. 

My little Boat, we shall not make the haven — 
It is not of the world. 

Somewhere of English forelands grandly guarded 
It stands, but not for exiles, marked and clean ; 
5 



ON BATTERSEA BRIDGE 

Oh! not for us. A mist has risen and marred 
it: — 
My youth lies in between. 

So in this snare that holds me and appals me, 
Where honour hardly lives nor loves remain, 

The Sea compels me and my Country calls me. 
But stronger things restrain. 



England, to me that never have malingered. 
Nor spoken falsely, nor your flattery used, 

Nor even in my rightful garden lingered: — 
What have you not refused'? 



THE SOUTH COUNTRY 

When I am living in the Midlands 

That are sodden and unkind, 
I light my lamp in the evening: 

My work is left behind; 
And the great hills of the South Country 

Come back into my mind. 

The great hills of the South Country 

They stand along the sea; 
And it's there walking in the high woods 

That I could wish to be, 
And the men that were boys when I was a boy 

Walking along with me. 

The men that live in North England 

I saw them for a day: 
Their hearts are set upon the waste fells, 

Their skies are fast and grey; 
From their castle-walls a man may see 

The mountains far away. 
7 



THE SOUTH COUNTRY 

The men that live in West England 

They see the Severn strong, 
A-rolling on rough water brown 

Light aspen leaves along. 
They have the secret of the Rocks, 

And the oldest kind of song. 

But the men that live in the South Country 

Are the kindest and most wise, 
They get their laughter from the loud surf, 

And the faith in their happy eyes 
Comes surely from our Sister the Spring 

When over the sea she flies ; 
The violets suddenly bloom at her feet, 

She blesses us with surprise. 

I never get between the pines 

But I smell the Sussex air; 
Nor I never come on a belt of sand 

But my home is there. 
And along the sky the line of the Downs 

So noble and so bare. 

A lost thing could I never find. 
Nor a broken thing mend: 



THE SOUTH COUNTRY 

And I fear I shall be all alone 

When I get towards the end. 
Who will there be to comfort me 

Or who will be my friend*? 

I will gather and carefully make my friends 
Of the men of the Sussex Weald, 

They watch the stars from silent folds. 
They stiffly plough the field. 

By them and the God of the South Country 
My poor soul shall be healed. 

If I ever become a rich man, 

Or if ever I grow to be old, 
I will build a house with deep thatch 

To shelter me from the cold, 
And there shall the Sussex songs be sung 

And the story of Sussex told. 

I will hold my house In the high wood 

Within a walk of the sea, 
And the men that were boys when I was a boy 

Shall sit and drink with me. 



THE FANATIC 

Last night in Compton Street, Soho, 
A man whom many of you know 
Gave up the ghost at half past nine. 
That evening he had been to dine 
At Gressington's — an act unwise. 
But not the cause of his demise. 
The doctors all agree that he 
Was touched with cardiac atrophy 
Accelerated (more or less) 
By lack of proper food, distress, 
Uncleanliness, and loss of sleep. 

He was a man that could not keep 
His money (when he had the same) 
Because of creditors who came 
And took it from him ; and he gave 
So freely that he could not save. 

But all the while a sort of whim 
Persistently remained with him. 
Half admirable, half absurd: 
To keep his word, to keep his word. 

10 



THE FANATIC 

By which he did not mean what you 
And I would mean (of payments due 
Or punctual rental of the Flat — 
He was a deal too mad for that) 
But — as he put it with a fine 
Abandon, foolish or divine — 
But "That great word which every man 
Gave God before his life began." 
It was a sacred word, he said, 
Which comforted the pathless dead 
And made God smile when it was shown 
Unforfeited, before the Throne. 
And this (he said) he meant to hold 
In spite of debt, and hate, and cold; 
And this (he said) he meant to show 
As passport to the wards below. 
He boasted of it and gave praise 
To his own self through all his days. 

He wrote a record to preserve 
How steadfastly he did not swerve 
From keeping it; how stiff he stood 
Its guardian, and maintained it good. 
He had two witnesses to swear 
He kept it once in Berkeley Square. 



11 



THE FANATIC 

(Where hardly anything survives) 
And, through the loneliest of lives 
He kept it clean, he kept it still, 
Down to the last extremes of ill. 

So when he died, of many friends 
Who came in crowds from all the ends 
Of London, that it might be known 
They knew the man who died alone, 
Some, who had thought his mood sublime 
And sent him soup from time to time. 
Said, "Well, you cannot make them fit 
The world, and there's an end of it I" 
But others, wondering at him, said : 
"The man that kept his word is dead I" 

Then angrily, a certain third 
Cried, "Gentlemen, he kept his word. 
And as a man whom beasts surround 
Tumultuous, on a little mound 
Stands Archer, for one dreadful hour. 
Because a Man is borne to Power — 
And still, to daunt the pack below. 
Twangs the clear purpose of his bow. 
Till overwhelmed he dares to fall : 
So stood this bulwark of us all. 



12 



THE FANATIC 

He kept his word as none but he 
Could keep it, and as did not we. 
And round him as he kept his word 
To-day's diseased and faithless herd, 
A moment loud, a moment strong, 
But foul forever, rolled along." 



13 



NOEL 



On a winter's night long time ago 

{The bells ring loud and the bells ring low), 
When high howled wind, and down fell snow 

(Carillon, Carilla). 
Saint Joseph he and Notre Dame, 
Riding on an ass, full weary came 
From Nazareth into Bethlehem. 

And the small child Jesus smile on you. 

II 

And Bethlehem inn they stood before 

(The bells ring less and the hells ring more). 
The landlord bade them begone from his door 

(Carillon, Carilla). 
"Poor folk" (says he), "must lie where they may, 
For the Duke of Jewry comes this way. 
With all his train on a Christmas Day." 

And the small child Jesus smile on you. 
14 



NOEL 



III 



Poor folk that may my carol hear 

{The bells ring single and the bells ring 
clear) ^ 
See I God's one child had hardest cheer ! 

(Carillon, Carilla). 
Men grown hard on a Christmas morn ; 
The dumb beast by and a babe forlorn. 
It was very, very cold when our Lord was born. 

And the small child Jesus smile on you. 

IV 

Now these were Jews as Jews must be 

{The bells ring merry and the bells ring 
free). 

But Christian men in a band are we 
(Carillon, Carilla). 

Empty we go, and ill be-dight. 

Singing Noel on a Winter's night. 

Give us to sup by the warm firelight, 

And the small child Jesus smile on you. 



THE EARLY MORNING 

The moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other : 
The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother. 
The moon on my left and the dawn on my right. 
My brother, good morning : my sister, good night. 



16 



THE BIRDS 

When Jesus Christ was four years old, 
The angels brought Him toys of gold, 
Which no man ever had bought or sold. 

And yet with these He would not play. 
He made Him small fowl out of clay, 
And blessed them till they flew away: 
Tu creasti Domine. 

Jesus Christ, Thou child so wise. 
Bless mine hands and fill mine eyes, 
And bring my soul to Paradise. 



17 



OUR LORD AND OUR LADY 

They warned Our Lady for the Child 

That was Our blessed Lord, 
And She took Him into the desert wild, 

Over the camel's ford. 

And a long song She sang to Him 

And a short story told: 
And She wrapped Him in a woollen cloak 

To keep Him from the cold. 

But when Our Lord was grown a man 
The Rich they dragged Him down, 

And they crucified Him in Golgotha, 
Out and beyond the Town. 

They crucified Him on Calvary, 

Upon an April day; 
And because He had been her little Son 

She followed Him all the way. 

Our Lady stood beside the Cross, 
A little space apart, 
18 



OUR LORD AND OUR LADY 

And when She heard Our Lord cry out 
A sword went through Her Heart. 

They laid Our Lord in a marble tomb, 

Dead, in a winding sheet. 
But Our Lady stands above the world 

With the white Moon at Her feet. 



19 



IN A BOAT 

Lady I Lady I 
Upon Heaven-height, 
Above the harsh morning 
In the mere light. 

Above the spindrift 
And above the snow, 
Where no seas tumble. 
And no winds blow. 

The twisting tides, 
And the perilous sands 
Upon all sides 
Are in your holy hands. 

The wind harries 
And the cold kills; 
But I see your chapel 
Over far hills. 

My body is frozen, 
My soul is afraid: 

20 



IN A BOAT 

Stretch out your hands to me, 
Mother and maid. 

Mother of Christ, 
And Mother of me, 
Save me alive 
From the howl of the sea. 

If you will Mother me 
Till I grow old, 
I will hang in your chapel 
A ship of pure gold. 



21 



COURTESY 

Of Courtesy, it is much less 
Than Courage of Heart or Holiness, 
Yet in my Walks it seems to me 
That the Grace of God is in Courtesy. 

On Monks I did in Storrington fall, 
They took me straight into their Hall; 
I saw Three Pictures on a wall. 
And Courtesy was in them all. 

The first the Annunciation; 

The second the Visitation; 

The third the Consolation, 

Of God that was Our Lady's Son. 

The first was of Saint Gabriel ; 

On Wings a-flame from Heaven he fell ; 

And as he went upon one knee 

He shone with Heavenly Courtesy. 

22 



COURTESY 

Our Lady out of Nazareth rode — 
It was Her month of heavy load; 
Yet was Her face both great and kind, 
For Courtesy was in Her Mind. 

The third it was. our Little Lord, 
Whom all the Kings in arms adored; 
He was so small you could not see 
His large intent of Courtesy. 

Our Lord, that was Our Lady's Son, 
Go bless you, People, one by one; 
My Rhyme is written, my work is done. 



23 



THE NIGHT 

Most holy Night, that still dost keep 
The keys of all the doors of sleep, 
To me when my tired eyelids close 
Give thou repose. 

And let the far lament of them 
That chaunt the dead day's requiem 
Make in my ears, who wakeful lie. 
Soft lullaby. 

Let them that guard the horned moon 
By my bedside their memories croon. 
So shall I have new dreams and blest 
In my brief rest. 

Fold your great wings about my face, 
Hide dawning from my resting-place, 
And cheat me with your false delight, 
Most Holy Night. 



24 



THE LEADER 

The sword fell down: I heard a knell; 

I thought that ease was best, 
And sullen men that buy and sell 

Were host: and I was guest. 
All unashamed I sat with swine, 

We shook the dice for war, 
The night was drunk with an evil wine — 

But she went on before. 

She rode a steed of the sea- foam breed. 

All faery was her blade. 
And the armour on her tender limbs 

Was of the moonshine made. 

By God that sends the master-maids, 

I know not whence she came, 
But the sword she bore to save the soul 

Went up like an altar flame 
Where a broken race in a desert place 

Call on the Holy Name. 
25 



THE LEADER 

We strained our eyes in the dim day-rise^ 
We could not see them plain; 

But two dead men from Valmy fen 
Rode at her bridle-rein. 

I hear them all, my fathers call, 

I see them how they ride, 
And where had been that rout obscene 

Was an army straight with pride. 
A hundred thousand marching men, 

Of squadrons twenty score, 
And after them all the guns, the guns. 

But she went on before. 

Her face was like a king's command 
When all the swords are drawn. 

She stretched her arms and smiled at us. 

Her head was higher than the hills. 

She led us to the endless plains. 
We lost her in the dawn. 



26 



A BIVOUAC 



You came without a human sound, 

You came and brought my soul to me ; 
I only woke, and all around 
They slumbered on the firelit ground. 
Beside the guns in Burgundy. 

II 

I felt the gesture of your hands. 

You signed my forehead with the Cross; 
The gesture of your holy hands 
Was bounteous — like the misty lands 
Along the Hills in Calvados. 

Ill 

But when I slept I saw your eyes, 
Hungry as death, and very far. 
I saw demand in your dim eyes 
Mysterious as the moons that rise 
At midnight, in the Pines of Var. 
27 



TO THE BALLIOL MEN STILL IN AFRICA 

Years ago when I was at Balliol, 

Balliol men — and I was one — 
Swam together in winter rivers, 

Wrestled together under the sun. 
And still in the heart of us, Balliol, Balliol, 

Loved already, but hardly known, 
Welded us each of us into the others: 

Called a levy and chose her own. 

Here is a House that armours a man 

With the eyes of a boy and the heart of a ranger, 
And a laughing way in the teeth of the world 

And a holy hunger and thirst for danger: 
Balliol made me, Balliol fed me, 

Whatever I had she gave me again: 
And the best of Balliol loved and led me. 

God be with you, Balliol men. 

I have said it before, and I say it again. 

There was treason done, and a false word 
spoken, 

28 



TO THE BALLIOL MEN STILL IN AFRICA 

And England under the dregs of men, 
And bribes about, and a treaty broken: 

But angr)% lonely, hating it still, 

I wished to be there in spite of the wrong. 
My heart was heavy for Cumnor Hill 

And the hammer of galloping all day long. 

Galloping outward into the weather, 

Hands a-ready and battle in all: 
Words together and wine together 

And song together in Balliol Hall. 
Rare and single I Noble and few I . . . 

Oh I they have wasted you over the sea I 
The only brothers ever I knew, 

The men that laughed and quarrelled with me. 



Balliol made me, Balliol fed me. 
Whatever I had she gave me again; 

And the best of Balliol loved and led me, 
God be with you, Balliol men. 



29 



VERSES TO A LORD 

WHO, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, SAID THAT 
THOSE WHO OPPOSED THE SOUTH AF- 
RICAN ADVENTURE CONFUSED SOL- 
DIERS WITH MONEY-GRUBBERS 

You thought because we held, my lord. 

An ancient cause and strong, 
That therefore we maligned the sword : 

My lord, you did us wrong. 

We also know the sacred height 

Up on Tugela side, 
Where those three hundred fought with Beit 

And fair young Wemher died. 

The daybreak on the failing force. 

The final sabres drawn: 
Tall Goltman, silent on his horse. 

Superb against the dawn. 



30 



VERSES TO A LORD 

The little mound where Eckstein stood 

And gallant Albu fell, 
And Oppenheim, half blind with blood, 
Went fording through the rising flood — 

My Lord, we know them well. 

The little empty homes forlorn, 
The ruined synagogues that mourn, 

In Frankfort and Berlin; 
We knew them when the peace was tom- 
We of a nobler lineage born — 
And now by all the gods of scorn 

We mean to rub them in. 



31 



THE REBEL 

There is a wall of which the stones 
Are lies and bribes and dead men's bones. 
And wrongfully this evil wall 
Denies what all men made for all, 
And shamelessly this wall surrounds 
Our homesteads and our native grounds. 

But I will gather and I will ride, 
And I will summon a countryside, 
And many a man shall hear my halloa 
Who never had thought the horn to follow; 
And many a man shall ride with me 
Who never had thought on earth to see 
High Justice in her armoury. 

When we find them where they stand, 
A mile of men on either hand, 
I mean to charge from right away 
And force the flanks of their array, 
And press them inward from the plains, 
And drive them clamouring down the lanes, 
32 



THE REBEL 

And gallop and harry and have them down, 
And carry the gates and hold the town. 
Then shall I rest me from my ride 
With my great anger satisfied. 

Only, before I eat and drink, 

When I have killed them all, I think 

That I will batter their carven names. 

And slit the pictures in their frames, 

And burn for scent their cedar door, 

And melt the gold their women wore, 

And hack their horses at the knees, 

And hew to death their timber trees, 

And plough their gardens deep and through — 

And all these things I mean to do 

For fear perhaps my little son 

Should break his hands, as I have done. 



33 



THE PROPHET LOST IN THE HILLS 
AT EVENING 

Strong God which made the topmost stars 
To circulate and keep their course, 

Remember me; whom all the bars 
Of sense and dreadful fate enforce. 

Above me in your heights and tall, 
Impassable the summits freeze. 

Below the haunted waters call 
Impassable beyond the trees. 

I hunger and I have no bread. 

My gourd is empty of the wine. 
Surely the footsteps of the dead 
Are shuffling softly close to mine ! 

It darkens. I have lost the ford. 

There is a change on all things made. 
The rocks have evil faces, Lord, 

And I am awfully afraid. 
34 



THE PROPHET LOST IN THE HILLS 

Remember me I the Voids of Hell 
Expand enormous all around. 

Strong friend of souls, Emmanuel, 
Redeem me from accursed ground. 

The long descent of wasted days. 

To these at last have led me down; 
Remember that I filled with praise 
The meaningless and doubtful ways 
That lead to an eternal town. 

I challenged and I kept the Faith, 
The bleeding path alone I trod; 

It darkens. Stand about my wraith, 
And harbour me — almighty God I 



35 



SONG 

INVITING THE INFLUENCE OF A YOUNG LADY 
UPON THE OPENING YEAR 



You wear the morning like your dress 
And are with mastery crowned; 
Whenas you walk your loveliness 
Goes shining all around. 
Upon your secret, smiling way 
Such new contents were found, 
The Dancing Loves made holiday 
On that delightful ground. 

II 

Then summon April forth, and send 
Commandment through the flowers; 
About our woods your grace extend 
A queen of careless hours. 
For oh, not Vera veiled in rain, 
Nor Dian's sacred Ring, 
With all her royal nymphs in train 
Could so lead on the Spring. 
36 



THE RING 

When I was flying before the King 
In the wood of Valognes in my hiding, 
Although I had not anything 
I sent a woman a golden ring. 

A Ring of the Moors beyond Leon 
With emerald and with diamond stone, 
And a writing no man ever had known. 
And an opal standing all alone. 

The shape of the ring the heart to bind : 
The emerald turns from cold to kind: 
The writing makes her sure to find: — 
But the evil opal changed her mind. 

Now when the King was dead, was he, 
I came back hurriedly over the sea 
From the long rocks in Normandy 
To Bosham that is by Selsey. 
And we dipt each other knee to knee. 
But what I had was lost to me. 
37 



CUCKOO! 

In woods so long time bare. 

Cuckoo I 
Up and in the wood, I know not where 
Two notes fall. 
Yet I do not envy him at all 
His phantasy. 
Cuckoo ! 
I too, 

Somewhere, 

I have sung as merrily as he 
Who can dare. 

Small and careless lover, so to laugh at care, 
And who 
Can call 
Cuckoo I 

In woods of winter weary. 
In scented woods, of winter weary, call 
Cuckoo ! 
In woods so long time bare. 



38 



THE MIRROR 

The mirror held your Fair, my Fair, 

A fickle moment's space; 
You looked into mine eyes and there 

For ever fixed your face. 

Keep rather to your Looking Glass 
Than my more faithful eyes. 

It told the truth. Alas! my lass! 
My constant memory lies. 



39 



THE LITTLE SERVING MAID 



There was a Queen of England, 

And a good Queen too. 
She had a house in Powis Land 

With the Severn running through; 
And Men-folk and Women-folk 

Apprenticed to a trade; 
But the prettiest of all 

Was a Little Serving Maid. 

II 

"Oh Madam, Queen of England ! 

Oh will you let me go I 
For there's a Lad in London 

And he would have it so. 
And I would have it too, Madam, 

And with him would I bide; 
And he will be the Groom, Madam, 

And I shall be the Bride I" 
40 



THE LITTLE SERVING MAID 

III 

"Oh fie to you and shame to you, 

You Little Serving Maid I 
And are you not astonied? 

And are you not afraid? 
For never was it known 

Since Yngelonde began 
That a Little Serving Maid 

Should go a-meeting of a man I" 

IV 

Then the Little Serving Maid 

She went and laid her down. 
With her cross and her bede, 

In her new courting gown. 
And she called in Mother Mary's name 

And heavily she sighed : 
*T think that I have come to shame I" 

And after that she died. 



The good Queen of England 
Her women came and ran: 

"The Little Serving Maid is dead 
From loving of a man I" 
41 



THE LITTLE SERVING MAID 

Said the good Queen of England 
*'That is ill news to hear I 

Take her out and shroud her, 
And lay her on a bier." 

VI 

They laid her on a bier, 

In the court-yard all; 
Some came from Foresting, 

And some came from Hall. 
And Great Lords carried her. 

And proud Priests prayed. 
And that was the end 

Of the Little Serving Maid. 



42 



THE END OF THE ROAD 

In these boots and with this staff 
Two hundred leaguers and a half 
Walked I, went I, paced I, tripped I, 
Marched I, held I, skelped I, slipped I, 
Pushed I, panted, swung and dashed I; 
Picked I, forded, swam and splashed I, 
Strolled I, climbed I, crawled and scrambled, 
Dropped and dipped I, ranged and rambled; 
Plodded I, hobbled I, trudged and tramped I, 
And in lonely spinnies camped I, 
And in haunted pinewoods slept I, 
Lingered, loitered, limped and crept I, 
Clambered, halted, stepped and leapt I; 
Slowly sauntered, roundly strode I, 
And . . . (Oh! Patron saints and Angels 

That protect the four Evangels ! 
And you Prophets vel majores 
Vel incerti, vel minores, 
Virgines ac confessores 
Chief of whose peculiar glories 
43 



THE END OF THE ROAD 

Est in Aula Regis stare 
Atque orare et exorare 
Et clamare et conclamare 
Clamantes cum clamoribus 
Pro Nobis Peccatoribus.) 
Let me not conceal it. . . . Rode I. 
(For who but critics could complain 
Of "riding" in a railway train?) 
Across the valley and the high-land, 
With all the world on either hand 
Drinking when I had a mind to, 
Singing when I felt inclined to; 
Nor ever turned my face to home 
Till I had slaked my heart at Rome. 



44 



AUVERGNAT 

There was a man was half a clown 

(It's so my father tells of it). 
He saw the church in Clermont town 
And laughed to hear the bells of it. 

He laughed to hear the bells that ring 
In Clermont Church and round of it; 
He heard the verger's daughter sing, 
And loved her for the sound of it. 

The verger's daughter said him nay; 
She had the right of choice in it. 
He left the town at break of day: 
He hadn't had a voice in it. 

The road went up, the road went down, 
And there the matter ended it. 
He broke his heart in Clermont town, 
At Pontgibaud they mended it. 



45 



DRINKING SONG 

ON THE EXCELLENCE OF BURGUNDY WINE 

My jolly fat host with your face all a-grin, 
Come, open the door to us, let us come in. 
A score of stout fellows who think it no sin 
If they toast till they're hoarse, and they drink till 
they spin. 
Hoofed it amain, 
Rain or no rain, 
To crack your old jokes, and your bottles to 
drain. 

Such a warmth in the belly that nectar begets 
As soon as his guts with its humour he wets, 
The miser his gold, and the student his debts. 
And the beggar his rags and his hunger forgets. 
For there's never a wine 
Like this tipple of thine 
From the great hill of Nuits to the River of 
Rhine. 

46 



DRINKING SONG 

Outside you may hear the great gusts as they go 
By Foy, by Duerne, and the hills of Lerraulx, 
But the rain he may rain, and the wind he may 

blow, 
If the Devil's above there's good liquor below. 
So it abound, 
Pass it around, 
Burgundy's Burgundy all the year round. 



47 



DRINKING DIRGE 

A THOUSAND years ago I used to dine 

In houses where they gave me such regale 
Of dear companionship and comrades fine 

That out I went alone beyond the pale ; 
And riding, laughed and dared the skies malign 

To show me all the undiscovered tale — 
But my philosophy's no more divine, 

I put my pleasure in a pint of ale. 

And you, my friends, oh I pleasant friends of mine, 

Who leave me now alone, without avail, 
On Californian hills you gave me wine. 

You gave me cider-drink in Longuevaille ; 
If after many years you come to pine 

For comradeship that is an ancient tale — 
You'll find me drinking beer in Dead Man's Chine. 

I put my pleasure in a pint of ale. 

In many a briny boat I've tried the brine. 
From many a hidden harbour I've set sail, 

Steering towards the sunset where there shine 
The distant amethystine islands pale. 
48 



DRINKING DIRGE 

There are no ports beyond the far sea-line, 
Nor any halloa to meet the mariner's hail ; 

I stand at home and slip the anchor-line. 
I put my pleasure in a pint of ale. 

ENVOI 

Prince ! Is it true when you go out to dine 
You bring your bottle in a freezing pail? 

Why then you cannot be a friend of mine. 
/ put my pleasure in a pint of ale. 



49 



WEST SUSSEX DRINKING SONG 

They sell good Beer at Haslemere 

And under Guildford Hill. 
At Little Cowfold as I've been told 

A beggar may drink his fill : 
There is a good brew in Amberley too, 

And by the bridge also; 
But the swipes they take in at Washington Inn 

Is the very best Beer I know. 

Chorus 

With my here it goes, there it goes, 

All the fun's before us : 
The Tipple's Aboard and the night is young, 
The door's ajar and the Barrel is sprung, 
I am singing the best song ever was sung 

And it has a rousing chorus. 

If I were what I never can be, 

The master or the squire: 
If you gave me the hundred from here to the sea. 

Which is more than I desire : 
50 



WEST SUSSEX DRINKING SONG 

Then all my crops should be barley and hops, 

And did my harvest fail 
I'd sell every rood of mine acres I would 

For a belly-full of good Ale. 

Chorus 

With my here it goes, there it goes, 

All the fun's before us: 
The Tipple's aboard and the night is young, 
The door's ajar and the Barrel is sprung, 
I am singing the best song ever was sung 

And it has a rousing chorus. 



51 



A BALLAD ON SOCIOLOGICAL 
ECONOMICS 

A WHILE ago it came to pass 
(Merry we carol it all the day), 

There sat a man on the top of an ass 
(Heart be happy and carol be gay 
In spite of the price of hay). 

And over the down they hoofed it so 
(Happy go lucky has best of fare), 

The man up above and the brute below 

(And singing we all forget to care 

A man may laugh if he dare). 

Over the stubble and round the crop 
(Life is short and the world is round), 

The donkey beneath and the man on top 
(Oh I let good ale be found, be found, 
Merry good ale and sound). 

It happened again as it happened before 
(Tobacco's a boon but ale is bliss), 
52 



A BALLAD 

The moke in the ditch and the man on the floor 
(And that is the moral to this, to this 
Remarkable artifice). 



53 



AN ORACLE 

THAT WARNED THE WRITER WHEN ON 
PILGRIMAGE 

Matutinus adest ubi Vesper, et accipiens te 
Saepe recusatum voces intelligit hospes 
Rusticus ignotas notas, ac flumina tellus 
Occupat — In sancto turn, turn, stans Aede caveto 
Tonsuram Hirsuti Capitis, via namque pedestrem 
Ferrea praeveniens cursum, peregrine, laborem 
Pro pietate tua inceptum f rustratur, amore 
Antiqui Ritus alto sub Numine Romae. 

Translation of the above: — 

When early morning seems but eve 
And they that still refuse receive : 
When speech unknown men understand; 
And floods are crossed upon dry land. 
Within the Sacred Walls beware 
The Shaven Head that boasts of Hair, 
For when the road attains the rail 
The Pilgrim's great attempt shall fail. 

54 



HERETICS ALL 

Heretics all, whoever you be, 

In Tarbes or Nimes, or over the sea, 

You never shall have good words from me. 

Caritas non conturbat me. 

But Catholic men that live upon wine 
Are deep in the water, and frank, and fine ; 
Wherever I travel I find it so, 
Benedicamus Dof?iino. 

On childing women that are forlorn. 
And men that sweat in nothing but scorn : 
That is on all that ever were born. 
Miserere Dofmne. 

To my poor self on my deathbed. 
And all my dear companions dead. 
Because of the love that I bore them, 
Dona Eis Kequiem. 



55 



THE DEATH AND LAST CONFESSION 
OF WANDERING PETER 

When Peter Wanderwide was young 
He wandered everywhere he would : 

And all that he approved was sung, 
And most of what he saw was good. 

When Peter Wanderwide was thrown 
By Death himself beyond Auxerre, 

He chanted in heroic tone 

To priests and people gathered there : 

"If all that I have loved and seen 
Be with me on the Judgment Day, 

I shall be saved the crowd between 
From Satan and his foul array. 

"Almighty God will surely cry, 

'St. Michael I Who is this that stands 

With Ireland in his dubious eye, 
And Perigord between his hands, 

" 'And on his arm the stirrup-thongs, 
And in his gait the narrow seas, 
56 



THE DEATH OF PETER 

And in his mouth Burgundian songs, 
But in his heart the Pyrenees'?' 

"St. Michael then will answer right 
(And not without angelic shame), 

'I seem to know his face by sight: 
I cannot recollect his name ...'?' 

"St. Peter will befriend me then. 

Because my name is Peter too : 
'I know him for the best of men 

That ever walloped barley brew. 

" 'And though I did not know him well 
And though his soul were clogged with sin, 

I hold the keys of Heaven and Hell. 
Be welcome, noble Peterkin.' 

"Then shall I spread my native wings 
And tread secure the heavenly floor. 

And tell the Blessed doubtful things 
Of Val d'Aran and Perigord." 



This was the last and solemn jest 
Of weary Peter Wanderwide. 

He spoke it with a failing zest. 
And having spoken it, he died. 
57 



DEDICATORY ODE 

I MEAN to write with all my strength 
(It lately has been sadly waning), 

A ballad of enormous length — 

Some parts of which will need explaining.^ 

Because (unlike the bulk of men 

Who write for fame or public ends), 

I turn a lax and fluent pen 

To talking of my private friends.^ 

For no one, in our long decline, 
So dusty, spiteful and divided. 

Had quite such pleasant friends as mine, 
Or loved them half as much as I did. 



1 But do not think I shall explain 

To any great extent. Believe me, 
I partly write to give you pain, 
And if you do not like me, leave me. 

2 And least of all can you complain, 

Reviewers, whose unholy trade is, 
To puff with all your might and main 
Biographers of single ladies. 

58 



DEDICATORY ODE 

The Freshman ambles down the High, 
In love with everything he sees, 

He notes the very Midland sky, 

He sniffs a more than Midland breeze. 

"Can this be Oxford? This the place?' 
(He cries) "of which my father said 

The tutoring was a damned disgrace. 
The creed a mummery, stuffed and dead? 

"Can it be here that Uncle Paul 
Was driven by excessive gloom, 

To drink and debt, and, last of all. 
To smoking opium in his room? 

"Is it from here the people come. 

Who talk so loud, and roll their eyes. 

And stammer? How extremely rum! 
How curious I What a great surprise. 

"Some influence of a nobler day 

Than theirs (I mean than Uncle Paul's), 
Has roused the sleep of their decay. 

And flecked with light their ancient walls. 



'to' 



"O ! dear undaunted boys of old. 

Would that your names were carven here, 
59 



DEDICATORY ODE 

For all the world in stamps of gold, 
That I might read them and revere. 

"Who wrought and handed down for me 
This Oxford of the larger air, 

Laughing, and full of faith, and free, 
With youth resplendent everywhere?" 

Then learn: thou ill-instructed, blind, 
Young, callow, and untutored man. 

Their private names were . . .^ 

Their club was called REPUBLICAN. 



Where on their banks of light they lie, 
The happy hills of Heaven between, 

The Gods that rule the morning sky 
Are not more young, nor more serene 

Than were the intrepid Four that stand. 
The first who dared to live their dream. 

And on this uncongenial land 

To found the Abbey of Theleme. 

1 Never mind. 
60 



DEDICATORY ODE 

We kept the Rabelaisian plan : ^ 
We dignified the dainty cloisters 

With Natural Law, the Rights of Man, 
Song, Stoicism, Wine and Oysters. 

The library was most inviting : 

The books upon the crowded shelves 

Were mainly of our private writing: 
We kept a school and taught ourselves. 

We taught the ait of writing things 
On men we still should like to throttle : 

And where to get the Blood of Kings 
At only half a crown a bottle. 



Eheu FugacesI Postume! 

(An old quotation out of mode) ; 
My coat of dreams is stolen away 

My youth is passing down the road. 



1 The plan forgot (I know not how, 
Perhaps the Refectory filled it), 

To put a chapel in; and now 
We're mortgaging the rest to build it. 
61 



DEDICATORY ODE 

The wealth of youth, we spent it well 

And decently, as very few can. 
And is it lost*? I cannot tell: 

And what is more, I doubt if you can. 

The question's very much too wide, 

And much too deep, and much too hollow, 

And learned men on either side 
Use arguments I cannot follow. 

They say that in the unchanging place, 
Where all we loved is always dear. 

We meet our morning face to face 

And find at last our twentieth year. . . . 

They say (and I am glad they say) 

It is so; and it may be so: 
It may be just the other way, 

I cannot tell. But this I know: 

From quiet homes and first beginning. 

Out to the undiscovered ends, 
There's nothing worth the wear of winning, 

But laughter and the love of friends. 



62 



DEDICATORY ODE 

But something dwindles, oh! my peers, 
And something cheats the heart and passes, 

And Tom that meant to shake the years 
Has come to merely rattling glasses. 

And He, the Father of the Flock, 

Is keeping Burmesans in order. 
An exile on a lonely rock 

That overlooks the Chinese border. 

And One (Myself I mean — no less). 
Ah I — will Posterity believe it — 

Not only don't deserve success, 
But hasn't managed to achieve it. 

Not even this peculiar town 

Has ever fixed a friendship firmer. 

But — one is married, one's gone down. 
And one's a Don, and one's in Burmah. 

And oh I the days, the days, the days. 
When all the four were off together: 

The infinite deep of summer haze. 

The roaring charge of autumn weather ! 



63 



DEDICATORY ODE 

I will not try the reach again, 

I will not set my sail alone, 
To moor a boat bereft of men 

At Yamton's tiny docks of stone. 

But I will sit beside the fire, 

And put my hand before my eyes, 

And trace, to fill my heart's desire, 
The last of all our Odysseys. 

The quiet evening kept her tryst : 
Beneath an open sky we rode. 

And passed into a wandering mist 
Along the perfect Evenlode. 

The tender Evenlode that makes 

Her meadows hush to hear the sound 

Of waters mingling in the brakes, 

And binds my heart to English ground. 

A lovely river, all alone. 

She lingers in the hills and holds 

A hundred little towns of stones. 
Forgotten in the western wolds 



64 



DEDICATORY ODE 

I dare to think (though meaner powers 
Possess our thrones, and lesser wits 

Are drinking worser wine than ours, 
In what's no longer Austerlitz) 

That surely a tremendous ghost. 

The brazen-lunged, the bumper-filler, 

Still sings to an immortal toast. 
The Misadventures of the Miller. 

The unending seas are hardly bar 
To men with such a prepossession: 

We were*? Why then, by God, we are — 
Order ! I call the Club to session ! 

You do retain the song we set. 
And how it rises, trips and scans? 

You keep the sacred memory yet, 
Republicans'? Republicans? 

You know the way the words were hurled. 
To break the worst of fortune's rub? 

I give the toast across the world. 

And drink it, "Gentlemen: the Club." 



65 



DEDICATION ON THE GIFT OF A 
BOOK TO A CHILD 

Child I do not throw this book about I 
Refrain from the unholy pleasure 

Of cutting all the pictures out! 

Preserve it as your chiefest treasure. 

Child, have you never heard it said 
That you are heir to all the ages^ 

Why, then, your hands were never made 
To tear these beautiful thick pages I 

Your little hands were made to take 

The better things and leave the worse ones : 

They also may be used to shake 

The Massive Paws of Elder Persons. 

And when your prayers complete the day, 
Darling, your little tiny hands 

Were also made, I think, to pray 
For men that lose their fairylands. 
66 



DEDICATION OF A CHILD'S BOOK 
OF IMAGINARY TALES 

WHEREIN WRONG-DOERS SUFFER 

And is it true*? It is not true ! 
And if it was it wouldn't do 
For people such as me and you, 
Who very nearly all day long 
Are doing something rather wrong. 



67 



HOMAGE 



There Is a light around your head 

Which only Saints of God may wear, 

And all the flowers on which you tread 

In pleasaunce more than ours have fed, 

And supped the essential air 

Whose summer is a-pulse with music everywhere. 

II 

For you are younger than the mornings are 

That in the mountains break; 

When upland shepherds see their only star 

Pale on the dawn, and make 

In his surcease the hours, 

The early hours of all their happy circuit take. 



68 



FILLE-LA-HAINE 

Death went into the steeple to ring, 

And he pulled the rope and he tolled a knell. 

Fille-la-Haine, how well you sing! 

Why are they ringing the Passing Bell? 

Death went into the steeple to ring; 

Fille-la-Haine^ how well you sing! 

Death went down the stream in a boat, 
Down the river of Seine went he; 

Fille-la-Haine had a pain in her throat, 
Fille-la-Haine was nothing to me. 

Death went down the stream in a boat; 

Fille-la-Haine had a pain in her throat. 

Death went up the hill in a cart 

(I have forgotten her lips and her laughter). 
Fille-la-Haine was my sweetheart 

(And all the village was following after). 
Death went up the hill in a cart. 
Fille-la-Haine was my sweetheart. 

69 



THE MOON'S FUNERAL 



The Moon is dead. I saw her die. 

She in a drifting cloud was drest, 

She lay along the uncertain west, 

A dream to see. 

And very low she spake to me: 

"I go where none may understand, 

I fade into the nameless land, 

And there must lie perpetually." 

And therefore I, 

And therefore loudly, loudly I 

And high 

And very piteously make cry: 

"The Moon is dead. I saw her die." 

II 

And will she never rise again? 
The Holy Moon *? Oh, never more ! 
Perhaps along the inhuman shore 
Where pale ghosts are 
70 



THE MOON'S FUNERAL 

Beyond the low lethean fen 
She and some wide infernal star — 
To us who loved her never more, 
The Moon will never rise again. 
Oh I never more in nightly sky 
Her eye so high shall peep and pry 
To see the great world rolling by. 
For why^ 
The Moon is dead. I saw her die. 



71 



THE HAPPY JOURNALIST 

I LOVE to walk about at night 
By nasty lanes and corners foul, 

All shielded from the unfriendly light 
And independent as the owl. 

By dirty grates I love to lurk; 

I often stoop to take a squint 
At printers working at their work. 

I muse upon the rot they print. 

The beggars please me, and the mud: 
The editors beneath their lamps 

As — Mr. Howl demanding blood, 
And Lord Retender stealing stamps, 

And Mr. Bing instructing liars, 
His elder son composing trash ; 

Beaufort (whose real name is Meyers) 
Refusing anything but cash. 
72 



THE HAPPY JOURNALIST 

I like to think of Mr. Meyers, 
I like to think of Mr. Bing. 

I like to think about the liars: 
It pleases me, that sort of thing. 

Policemen speak to me, but I, 
Remembering my civic rights, 

Neglect them and do not reply. 
I love to walk about at nights ! 

At twenty-five to four I bunch 
Across a cab I can't afford. 

I ring for breakfast after lunch. 
I am as happy as a lord ! 



73 



LINES TO A DON 

Remote and ineffectual Don 
That dared attack my Chesterton, 
With that poor weapon, half-impelled, 
Unlearnt, unsteady, hardly held, 
Unworthy for a tilt with men — 
Your quavering and corroded pen ; 
Don poor at Bed and worse at Table, 
Don pinched, Don starved, Don miserable; 
Don stuttering, Don with roving eyes, 
Don nervous, Don of crudities; 
Don clerical, Don ordinary, 
Don self-absorbed and solitary; 
Don here-and-there, Don epileptic ; 
Don puffed and empty, Don dyspeptic ; 
Don middle-class, Don sycophantic, 
Don dull, Don brutish, Don pedantic ; 
Don hypocritical, Don bad, 
Don furtive, Don three-quarters mad; 
Don (since a man must make an end), 
Don that shall never be my friend. 



74 



LINES TO A DON 

Don different from those regal Dons ! 
With hearts of gold and lungs of bronze, 
Who shout and bang and roar and bawl 
The Absolute across the hall, 
Or sail in amply bellowing gown 
Enormous through the Sacred Town, 
Bearing from College to their homes 
Deep cargoes of gigantic tomes; 
Dons admirable I Dons of Might I 
Uprising on my inward sight 
Compact of ancient tales, and port 
And sleep — and learning of a sort. 
Dons English, worthy of the land ; 
Dons rooted; Dons that understand. 
Good Dons perpetual that remain 
A landmark, walling in the plain — 
The horizon of my memories — 
Like large and comfortable trees. 

Don very much apart from these. 
Thou scapegoat Don, thou Don devoted, 
Don to thine own damnation quoted, 
Perplexed to find thy trivial name 
Reared in my verse to lasting shame. 
Don dreadful, rasping Don and wearing, 
75 



LINES TO A DON 

Repulsive Don — Don past all bearing. 

Don of the cold and doubtful breath, 

Don despicable, Don of death; 

Don nasty, skimpy, silent, level ; 

Don evil ; Don that serves the devil. 

Don ugly — that makes fifty lines. 

There is a Canon which confines 

A Rhymed Octosyllabic Curse 

If written in Iambic Verse 

To fifty lines. I never cut ; 

I far prefer to end it — but 

Believe me I shall soon return. 

My fires are banked, yet still they bum 

To write some more about the Don 

That dared attack my Chesterton. 



76 



NEWDIGATE POEM 

A PRIZE POEM SUBMITTED BY MR. LAMBKIN OF 
BURFORD TO THE EXAMINERS OF THE UNIVER- 
SITY OF OXFORD ON THE PRESCRIBED POETIC 
THEME SET BY THEM IN 1893, "THE BENEFITS 
OF THE ELECTRIC LIGHT" 

Hail, Happy Muse, and touch the tuneful 

string ! 
The benefits conferred by Science ^ I sing. 
Under the kind Examiners' direction ^ 
I only write about them in connection 
With benefits which the Electric Light 
Confers on us ; especially at night. 
These are my theme, of these my song shall rise. 
My lofty head shall swell to strike the skies. ^ 
And tears of hopeless love bedew the maiden's 

eyes. 

1 To be pronounced as a monosyllable in the Imperial fashion. 

2 Mr. Punt, Mr. Howl, and Mr. Grewcock (now, alas, de- 
ceased). 

* A neat rendering of "Sublimi f eriam sidera vertice." 

77 



NEWDIGATE POEM 

Descend, O Muse, from thy divine abode, 

To Osney, on the Seven Bridges Road ; 
For under Osney's solitary shade 
The bulk of the Electric Light is made. 
Here are the works ; — from hence the current flows 
Which (so the Company's prospectus goes) 

Can furnish to Subscribers hour by hour 
No less than sixteen thousand candle power,^ 
All at a thousand volts. (It is essential 
To keep the current at this high potential 
In spite of the considerable expense.) 

The Energy developed represents. 
Expressed in foot-tons, the united forces 
Of fifteen elephants and forty horses. 
But shall my scientific detail thus 
Clip the dear wings of Buoyant Pegasus? 

Shall pure statistics jar upon the ear 
That pants for Lyric accents loud and clear? 
Shall I describe the complex Dynamo 
Or write about its Commutator? No! 

To happier fields I lead my wanton pen. 
The proper study of mankind is men. 

Awake, my Muse ! Portray the pleasing sight 

1 To the Examiners: These facts (of which I guarantee the 
accuracy) were given me by a Director. 

78 



NEWDIGATE POEM 

That meets us where they make Electric Light. 

Behold the Electrician where he stands : 
Soot, oil, and verdigris are on his hands ; 
Large spots of grease defile his dirty clothes, 
The while his conversation drips with oaths. 
Shall such a being perish in its youth'? 
Alas I it is indeed the fatal truth. 
In that dull brain, beneath that hair unkempt, 
Familiarity has bred contempt. 
We warn him of the gesture all too late: 
Oh, Heartless Jove I Oh, Adamantine Fate I 

Some random touch — a hand's imprudent slip — 
The Terminals — a flash — a sound like "Zip I" 
A smell of burning fills the started Air — 
The Electrician is no longer there ! 

But let us turn with true Artistic scorn 
From facts funereal and from views forlorn 
Of Erebus and Blackest midnight born.^ 

Arouse thee, Muse ! and chaunt in accents rich 
The interesting processes by which 
The Electricity is passed along: 
These are my theme : to these I bend my song. 

It runs encased in wood or porous brick 
Through copper wires two millimetres thick, 

^A reminiscence of Milton: "Fas est et ab hoste doceri." 

79 



NEWDIGATE POEM 

And insulated on their dangerous mission 
By indiarubber, silk, or composition. 
Here you may put with critical felicity 
The following question: "What is Electricity*?'* 

"Molecular Activity," say some, 
Others when asked say nothing, and are dumb. 
Whatever be its nature, this is clear: 
The rapid current checked in its career, 
Baulked in its race and halted in its course ^ 
Transforms to heat and light its latent force : 

It needs no pedant in the lecturer's chair 
To prove that light and heat are present there. 
The pear-shaped vacuum globe, I understand, 
Is far too hot to fondle with the hand. 
While, as is patent to the meanest sight, 
The carbon filament is very bright. 

As for the lights they hang about the town, 
Some praise them highly, others run them down. 
This system (technically called the Arc), 
Makes some passages too light, others too dark. 

But in the house the soft and constant rays 
Have always met with universal praise. 

1 Lambkin told me he regretted this line, which was for the 
sake of Rhyme. He would willingly have replaced it, but to 
his last day could construct no substitute. 

80 



NEWDIGATE POEM 

For instance : if you want to read in bed 
No candle burns beside your curtain's head, 
Far from some distant corner of the room 
The incandescent lamp dispels the gloom, 

And with the largest print need hardly try 
The powers of any young and vigorous eye. 

Aroint thee. Muse I Inspired the poet sings I 
I cannot help observing future things I 
Life is a vale, its paths are dark and rough 
Only because we do not know enough : 
When Science has discovered something more 
We shall be happier than we were before. 

Hail, Britain, Mistress of the Azure Main, 
Ten thousand Fleets sweep over thee in vain! 
Hail, Mighty Mother of the Brave and Free, 
That beat Napoleon, and gave birth to me I 
Thou that canst wrap in thine emblazoned robe 
One quarter of the habitable globe. 
Thy mountains, wafted by a favouring breeze, 
Like mighty rocks withstand the stormy seas. 

Thou art a Christian Commonwealth ; and yet 
Be thou not all unthankful — nor forget 
As thou exultest in Imperial Might 
The Benefits of the Electric Light. 



81 



THE YELLOW MUSTARD 

Oh I ye that prink it to and fro, 
In pointed flounce and furbelow, 
What have ye known, what can ye know 
That have not seen the mustard grow? 

The yellow mustard is no less 
Than God's good gift to loneliness; 
And he was sent in gorgeous press 
To jangle keys at my distress. 

I heard the throstle call again, 
Come hither. Pain I come hither. Pain I 
Till all my shameless feet were fain 
To wander through the summer rain. 

And far apart from human place. 
And flaming like a vast disgrace. 
There struck me blinding in the face 
The livery of the mustard race. 

To see the yellow mustard grow 
Beyond the town, above, below; 
Beyond the purple houses, oh ! 
To see the yellow mustard grow ! 



82 



ON HYGIENE 

Of old when folk lay sick and sorely tried, 
The doctors gave them medicine and they died. 
Here is an happier age, for now we know 
Both how to make men sick and keep them so. 



83 



THE FALSE HEART 

I SAID to Heart, "How goes it*?" Heart replied; 
"Right as a Ribstone Pippin I" But it lied. 

A critic said large margins did not please him, 
I therefore printed just two lines, to tease him. 
And if he still complains of what I've done. 
In my next book I'll fill a page with one. 



84 



SONNET UPON GOD, THE WINE 
GIVER 

(For Easier Sunday) 

Thought Man made wine, I think God made it, 

too; 
God making all things, made Man made good 

wine. 
He taught him how the little tendrils twine 
About the stakes of labor close and true. 
Then next, with intimate prophetic laughter. 
He taught the Man, in His own image blest, 
To pluck and wagon and to — all the rest I 
To tread the grape and work his vintage after. 

So did God make us, making good wine makers; 
So did He order us to rule the field 
And now by God are we not only bakers ; 
But winners also sacraments to yield; 
Yet most of all strong lovers, Praised be God I 
Who taught us how the wine-press should be 
trod I 

85 



THE POLITICIAN 
OR THE IRISH EARLDOM 

A STRONG and striking Personality, 

Worth several hundred thousand pounds — 
Of strict political Morality — 

Was walking in his park-like Grounds; 
When, just as these began to pall on him 

(I mean the Trees, and Things like that), 
A Person who had come to call on him 

Approached him, taking off his Hat. 

He said, with singular veracity: 

"I serve our Sea-girt Mother-Land 
In no conspicuous capacity. 

I am but an Attorney; and 
I do a little elementary 

Negotiation, now and then, 
As Agent for a Parliamentary 

Division of the Town of N. . . . 

"Merely as one of the Electorate — 
A member of the Commonweal — 
86 



THE POLITICIAN 

Before completing my Directorate, 
I want to know the way you feel 

On matters more or less debatable; 
As — whether our Imperial Pride 

Can treat as taxable or rateable 

The Gardens of . . ." His host replied: 

"The Ravages of Inebriety 

(Alas I increasing day by day I) 
Are undermining all Society. 

I do not hesitate to say 
My country squanders her abilities, 

Observe how Montenegro treats 
Her Educational Facilities. . . . 

... As to the African defeats, 

"I bitterly deplored their frequency; 

On Canada we are agreed, 
The Laws protecting Public Decency 

Are very, very lax indeed I 
The Views of most of the Nobility 

Are very much the same as mine, 
On Thingumbob's eligibility . . . 

I trust that you remain to dine*?" 



87 






THE POLITICIAN 

His Lordship pressed with importunity, 
As rarely he had pressed before. 

It gave them both an opportunity 
To know each other's value more. 



88 



SHORT BALLAD AND 
POSTSCRIPT ON CONSOLS 



Gigantic daughter of the West 

(The phrase is Tennysonian), who 
From this unconquerable breast 

The vigorous milk of Freedom drew 
— We gave it freely — shall the crest 

Of Empire in your keeping true, 
Shall England — I forget the rest, 

But Consols are at 82. 

II 

Now why should any one invest, 

As even City people do 
(His Lordship did among the rest), 

When stocks — but what is that to you? 
And then, who ever could have guessed 

About the guns — and horses too I — 
Besides, they knew their business best. 

And Consols are at 82. 
89 



SHORT BALLAD ON CONSOLS 

III 

It serves no purpose to protest, 

It isn't manners to halloo 
About the way the thing was messed — 

Or vaguely call a man a Jew. 
A gentleman who cannot jest 

Remarked that we should muddle through 
(The continent was much impressed), 

And Consols are at 82. 

Envoi 

And, Botha lay at Pilgrim's Rest 
And Myberg in the Great Karroo 

(A desert to the south and west), 
And Consols are at 82. 

Postscript 

Permit me — if you do not mind — 
To add it would be screaming fun 

If, after printing this, I find 
Them after all at 81. 



90 



SHORT BALLAD ON CONSOLS 

Or 70 or 63, 
Or S5 or 44, 

Or 39 and going free, 
Or 28 — or even more. 

No matter — take no more advice 
From doubtful and intriguing men. 

Refuse the stuff at any price, 

And slowly watch them fall to 10. 

Meanwhile I feel a certain zest 
In writing once again the new 

Refrain that all is for the best, 
And Consols are at 82. 



91 



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